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    Forwarding Address 28 years-old human... Pancreatitis Depressed
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March 29, 2005 - 1:01 am What I did the last two weeks
On the Friday 11th March when I last wrote an entry I was basically getting pretty ill with a bout of my ulcerative colitis and had been suffering quite badly, particularly during the nights when I would wake up in excruciating pain that would make me want to be sick purely because it was too unbearable. I was ill all weekend, Saturday night was particularly bad and I was beginning to suspect that things were actually much worse than I dared to think about. After a very bad night I called to speak to an emergency doctor, something I have never done before � do you know how you feel like you�re wasting people�s time? Silly really. A doctor called me back in the afternoon of Sunday and advised me to call an ambulance and go straight to hospital should I suffer in the same way that night. Sunday afternoon was ok, I didn�t feel too bad and we had friends round for dinner in the evening, although I wasn�t on usual form I was pretty much fine despite the odd pang, but nothing unbearable. I planned to try to return to work the following day, however the events of the night changed that. At around 1.30am in the wee small hours of Monday morning I woke up shivering and in agony. After half an hour Mr D called an ambulance. I felt SO guilty about calling an ambulance, I really felt like I wasn�t really sick enough, that calling an ambulance was cheating for some reason. I remember lying in the back with oxygen on apologizing to the ambulance guy. I was attached to a drip almost as soon as I arrived in hospital. My heartbeat was irregular and my blood pressure was all over the place. I had a temperature and they gave me strong pain killers for the pain in the tummy. I spent six hours in casualty with Mr D by my side, I was in and out of sleep, in and out of the bathroom, in and out of x-ray. And then it was 8am and I was wheeled down to the Clinical Decision Unit, I was feeling better � the painkillers and drip having regulated my heartbeat and brought down my temperature and my tummy wasn�t hurting. Mr D went out to phone my parents and the consultant swooped in with his entourage. He was very nice, very honest, very efficient, very down-to-earth. I began to feel a bit like a fraud as I was lying so comfortably in bed feeling better. The consultant told me that he intended to admit me to the hospital for about five days, during which time he intended to treat my condition very aggressively with steroids. Then I was given an injection to stop my blood clotting, attached to another drip and given some breakfast. It was all so weird. I spent the whole day in the CDU. I had to go for more x-rays in the afternoon and when I came back everyone was there � my mum, my dad, my sister. I remember pointing out to them that I had luckily painted my toes a nice pink colour the day before, which was handy as I didn�t have any slippers with my at that point. I was taken up to the gastro ward at around 8.30pm. Luckily I had my own room off the side of the ward, although there was only one toilet for me to run to if I needed. The first night I still felt like a fraud, until around 9.30pm when the pain started again and I lost a gallon of blood all night. I couldn�t eat, it made me feel sick and hurt my tummy, the drugs made me sleep for days, I was attached to a drip constantly. They put a camera into my tummy and found that the disease has spread to my whole lower intestine. By Wednesday they spoke to me about surgery � to have my whole colon removed. It was the worst week and weekend of my life. I was up and down and all over the place emotionally, physically, mentally. My veins started hurting and would no longer give up blood for the daily tests without a fight. My arms are even now as I write black, blue, deep purple, green � from my wrists to the back of my elbows. It looks very dramatic at least! My mother got a prescription from her homeopath, who had cured her of the symptoms of her Crohn�s Disease (a similar condition to mine). My consultant ok�d it for me to take homeopathic remedies alongside his conventional medicine, he said one should always keep an open mind. I don�t know what happened. By Tuesday the next week I was improving, I was off the drip, surgery was suddenly not an immediate option, though I couldn�t let myself out of the mindset that it was going to happen I was too scared I would end up back at square one overnight. Then on Thursday 24th they said I could go home. They packed up all my pills to take home, gave me some painkillers just in case and then I was off home � outside the hospital in the real world again, with people going about being normal walking around, driving cars, going to work, shopping, eating�being normal. Like I hadn�t just been plucked out of life for ten days and then bunged back into it just like that. The first few days back at home were weird. I felt very black inside, very hollow, very pointless, very useless, like I would never be able to function again. I don�t know why, possibly shock? I still don�t know. I know I feel better now, I know I can feel me coming back through in a way, though I still feel very very strange. I can�t really sleep (hence writing this entry at 1am with no intention of going to bed for a while) but that�s probably the drugs and a lack of daily routine, and too much contemplation. I am obsessed with being healthy now � I despise smoking. And I used to smoke, socially and regularly, now I can�t bear to see someone put one in their mouth � why would someone want to willingly abuse their body like that? Because at the end of the day all you really have is your health. Without your health you lose your freedom entirely, and you have nothing. I am obsessed with gorgeous healthy food � honey, carrots, garlic, porridge, filtered water, crusty wholemeal bread, fruit, fish, oranges�.mmmmm! Although that may be a reaction to the god awful hospital slop they served. I still have a long way to go, I still have a lot of drugs to take and a lot of recovering, both mentally and physically, to do. The mental recovery will be the hardest as I have always been quite a strong person, able to deal with any problems pretty well, but this has knocked me sideways and I know I have some mental recovery to go through. I�ll probably ramble here for some time to come. For now though I�ll just finish by saying that I have learnt this � your health and the people you consider to be your family are the only things that matter. Keep both of them safe and well. |
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